Ebla city. Source: the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)
Militants have stolen gold and stone artifacts from the ancient city of Ebla in the southeastern part of the so-called Greater Idlib region, the director of Hama’s department of culture, Hazer Aylu, told RIA Novosti on April 21.
Ebla, the capital of an influential state that existed in the III-II millennia BC, fell under militnats’ control in the early years of the Syrian conflict.
According to Aylu, militants may have occupied the ancient city upon orders from artifacts’ traffickers interested in looting the ruins.
“We think that the militants didn’t decide to occupy the ancient city by themselves. Someone sent them there. Most likely, they were traders of ancient artifacts. They arrived and began to purposefully search for the tomb of the rulers of Ebla, they wanted to find jewelry. Dozens of golden and stone artifacts were stolen,” Aylu said, adding “The militants inflicted huge damage on the city.”
Starting as a small settlement in the Early Bronze Age, Ebla developed into a trading empire controlling much of northern and eastern Syria. Artifacts from Sumer, Cyprus, Egypt and as far as Afghanistan were recovered from the city’s palaces.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) liberated Ebla, located near Tell Mardikh, earlier this year. There, the army found that the militants established a military camp right on the ruins of the ancient city.
“There was a base, headquarters, a training ground and shelters for equipment. A whole military camp for 1,500 people. They also buried armored vehicles and pickups under the ground. They chose this place because it was closed on all sides by ramparts and here you can hide,” an SAA officer told RIA Novosti.
Aylu hoped that Russian specialists could help restore the ancient city. A unit of Russian sappers will soon set off to clear the city from war remnants.
The looting of archaeological sites and artifacts trafficking is a main source of income for militants in Syria. Terrorist groups and Turkish-backed factions have been involved in such criminal activities for years now.
Thats what criminal filth do,the artifacts will end up in the Auction houses in the west,it happened in Iraq those Apes have no culture.
This is their culture. Yesterday 46 km of train tracks, today ancient gold and stone artifacts, tomorrow… who knows, if they run out of money and ideas completely, maybe they will kidnap people again.
They dont have connections for free from Russia and Iran:(
YES and NO. This is what Globalist filth do to eliminate people’s history and culture – only the US and dick suckers do this + the yids.
Almost all historical facts and artifacts are found and decriebed by Westerns and certainly not the local Arabistanis.
When things were taken it was not theft and we today also give a lot back to the countries, where its found and more will come.
You also seemes not to have registrated that important things has been stolen in West too and we do fight that kind of theft here.
I wonder why Islam has rules about theft, if none do it. And its even written that Islam should be finaced by theft and it was until there was not more to steal. The arabic expansion then stipped for a while, but then the soldiers got stolen land instead.
Thats why there are so many arabs in Iraq today.
Now west is blamed for having money :) We probatly stole them too:)
Actually the US DID steal some in Iraq,are you stupid or what?many artifacts end up in the West and the people buying them know where they came from.
The stupidity is writing about it as You do by someone narrowminded as You.
We work hard to avoid any theft here, which also included all artifacts including our own. And we do find the thieves. And we do send them back from own museums, because they were taken in the past in another time, where traditions were different.